You are saving their lives for a life not worth living.
-- Malorie (chapter 1 paragraph 17)

Importance: These words of internal thought from Malorie reveal the deeply troubling struggle that marks her life. Here, she struggles with the purpose of her existence and thinks of the horrors her children will have to endure. As in the entirety of the novel, Malerman attempts to develop character alongside mood in order to build a feeling of both suspense and near hopelessness.

The chicken wire...has served as armor, protecting the children not from what could see them, but from what they could see.
-- Narrator (chapter 1 paragraph 32)

Importance: When Malorie gives the reader this insight into the children’s situation she also displays her own feeling of helplessness. Malerman reverses the usual idea of danger by noting that what the children can see is what should scare them. No longer is the monster under the bed the fear, but the monster that they...